Steely with conviction, luminous with wisdom and wit, Fred Zinnemann’s impeccable film of Robert Bolt’s play about the life of Thomas More explores what defines a man, or what is left to a man who has no defining center that cannot be bought or coerced. Successful, Read More …
A romantic triangle is one of the most common storylines in film. The characters are usually pretty well defined: a well meaning guy with a raging libido, a gorgeous woman with loose morals, and a sweet sensible girl pining for a husband. And of course, Read More …
“There are moments when the social world seems more evident in an object or a gesture than in the whole concatenation of our beliefs and institutions.” In this quote, anthropologist David MacDougall encapsulates the ambition of observational cinema with perfect precision. “Through our senses we Read More …
Appreciation coming. Directed by: Maurice Cloche Produced by: Viscount George de la Grandiere André Halley des Fontaines André Lejard Georges Maurer Written by: Jean Anouilh Jean Bernard-Luc Music by: Jean-Jacques Grünenwald Jean Dalve Cinematography by: Claude Renoir Editing by: Jean Feyte Release Date: 1947 Running Read More …
Marc Rothemund’s fact-based Sophie Scholl: The Final Days is a riveting portrait of a young woman of formidable intellect, dogged self-possession, and excruciatingly steady nerves. At 21, Sophia Magdalena Scholl (Julia Jentsch) is old enough to have outgrown the brash overconfidence of immaturity, but not too old Read More …
For many years I had taped to my office door a copy of Syd Harris’s famous cartoon in which two academics perused a chalkboard with a sea of figures making a complex mathematical formula. Embedded in the middle was the notation “Then a Miracle Occurs.” Modernists don’t Read More …
Bark Cooper, one of the two elderly protagonists of Leo McCarey’s MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (1937), boasts of one and only one accomplishment in his life. When he was a young man, Bark won the heart of his wife Lucy over a rival who became Read More …
“No one is born to be a failure. No one is poor who has friends.” These platitudes, plastered across the packaging of home-video editions of Frank Capra’s evergreen Christmas classic, embody the film’s popular but misleading image as sentimental, schmaltzy “Capra-corn.” Yet the film itself Read More …
Appreciation coming. Directed by: Alain Resnais Produced by: Anatole Dauman Samy Halfon Philippe Lifchitz Written by: Jean Cayrol Music by: Hanns Eisler Cinematography by: Ghislain Cloquet Sacha Vierny Editing by: Alain Resnais Release Date: 1956 Running Time: 32 Language: French Arts & Faith Lists: 2020 Read More …
There are stories so painful, so terrifying, so true, that they can only be about children. When they are packaged as such, we call them fairy tales. When they are made for and by adults, we sometimes call them horror films. Edmund Burke once argued Read More …